I love you, I kill you
by Ariel the Tempest
Summary: Jin and Mugen have a talk about relationships and betrayal. Mention of JinXYukimaru, MugenXSara. Major spoilers for episodes 16,17 and 20,21. Rated for language use.


Jin and Mugen have a talk about relationships and betrayal. Pervasive mention of JinXYukimaru, MugenXSara. Major spoilers for episodes 16-17, and 20-21.

Very, very lovingly dedicated to Mariphasa Hecatene, for the 100,000th hit on her website Amalgam, and in fond memory of the role-play session that sparked this fic many months ago. You're an inspiration, shimai, and I don't know what I'd do without you. And a big "Thank you" to Dupidnagog, for helping me out of a dialogue mire in my time of need.

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Four days since they'd thought Jin was dead, and counted it a lucky escape for Sara.

Three and half since he'd seen through her, and tried to avenge a fallen comrade.

Three days since Jin had come limping back, talking like he was still in the other world.

Two and half since the two of them had met for the last time.

Two days since the three of them had finished building Sara's grave.

Two days since he'd felt like speaking a civil word to any creature on earth ever again.

Two days since the first person who'd ever looked straight to the bottom of his soul and reacted with understanding and not disgust had practically thrown herself on his sword.

Somewhere way deep down, even when she said their paths had to split, even when she walked away with Jin demurely two steps behind, even when they dragged her out of the river, he'd had a little dream of being alone together…not the normal sort of dream he'd have about a beautiful woman, not even the sort of dream he had about that busty ninja chick from Osaka, just a dream of being two against the world for awhile, instead of one.

A dream of being in love.

Not that he'd have admitted thinking that way to any living soul. Unless that soul bought him a flask or two of sake…which was exactly what Jin had done. Just dragged him off to a little tavern a few blocks from the inn they were staying in, dumped him at a table to sulk, and then reappeared a few minutes later with a bottle and two cups.

"Don't bother asking how I paid for it. Just drink." Jin retreated from the table to sit leaning against the wall. When offered a full cup he shook his head.

Mugen gave him an odd look. "I know you're a little weak on these customs, but you're supposed to be matching me."

"Right now, my head is about the only thing that doesn't hurt like hell, and I'd rather keep it that way." His hand rose involuntary to massage the half-healed gash in his shoulder. "Speaking of which, you really know how to pick tough women."

Any other day, Mugen would have had a smartass reply right up his sleeve. Now, he just didn't feel like it. "I wish I didn't. They're always the ones I'd like to have stick around, and they never can."

Jin nodded. "The parting is always the kicker. I'd tell you to switch sides, but men are the same way: the ones worth keeping don't stay."

That got him a wry grin. "I was gonna ask that." Mugen assumed the timeless pose of the glum lush: gazing at the bottom of his glass as if the secrets of life were printed there. "Guess it's kind of the same either way, living like we all do. Either you can't hang around cos you have your own problems, or...your problems take you down."

"You do realize that if you hadn't killed her, her…handlers…would have. Or she would have died of a broken heart."

Threw back the shot, poured another. "I know…" A deep sigh. "I know she wanted it to be me. I know I cut her loose. All that. But..."--eyes squeezed shut, jaw clenched, banging the little sake' saucer down on the table; it spilled and cracked but didn't shatter--"damn it. I liked her. I'm sick to fuckin' death of getting tricked into killing people I wasn't gonna."

Jin eyed him, and then seemed to make up his mind to go for the deep, reckless plunge. "Four years and two months. Did you win, or did Fuu?"

Mugen snorted sake clear into his sinuses, and had to sneeze several times. "You can't possibly have said what I heard you say. Come again?"

A pityingly superior look. "Yukimaru and I were together four years and two months. Who won the bet?"

Growling, "There wasn't any bet. We just compared guesses…and how the fuck do you know that anyway? No, on second thought don't tell me….Four years? _Damn_. She was right about you just being kids when it started, then."

There was a warm light in the back of Jin's eyes; whatever he was recalling was not unpleasant. "He was for certain, and I was only a step ahead." The light turned sad and a shade ironic. "There was a certain sentimental quality to having him trail after me again--even with murderous intent."

"Not _just_ kids, then. Takes more than just hero-worship to trail someone that far."

"Aye, it does...and it takes more than a nicely-filled kimono to make you this down and out."

"Yah, she was the whole package--never met anything like her. Probably didn't deserve to anyway. It's like the world gives you a taste of something really great, and then yanks it away right as you start thinking life could be this good."

"You didn't deserve her, and you also didn't deserve to have your heart trod on. I rather wish the river had been lower. Then it might have all been over that much sooner."

Mugen toyed idly with the neck of the sake bottle, his mind not on drinking. "Maybe that would have saved me from having to kill her, but - as stupid as it sounds, I wouldn't have gotten to see her again"

Jin gave him a sad, knowing look. "I'm not going to argue with that. Yuki cornered me on a cliff the first time, and I jumped to avoid a fight…but all I could think of as I did was how beautiful he was when he was angry."

"Had it been me and Sara on a cliff, I'd probably do the same thing. You know, when we were together, it was the first time that I felt like I belonged somewhere, that it wasn't just me by myself in a fucked-up world."

"If you'd been able to make that choice, to turn away from that fight, do you think it would have made any difference?"

"I'd like to think it would have, but she had a job to do. So, I guess nothing would have changed." He studied Jin—gazing out the window, leaning on his good hip and arm in a much more unguarded pose than anything Mugen had seen before--for a few moments. "Twice you've wound up taking a plunge to save someone else and nothing's come of it. Twice a woman I thought was on my side was working for someone else. Kami-na, it's not worth giving a damn about _anyone_, is it?" He handed the samurai a full shot of sake.

Jin sat up to take the cup in both hands, closed his eyes in reverence, and then drank slowly and deliberately. Mugen understood why: best not to disturb the dead with talk without soothing them back to sleep again with a toast. He would have done likewise had he not still felt pissed off—a grudging offering was worse than none at all. "Hard to say. If it's not worth loving...it's not worth hating either. He tried to kill me, my Snowflake, but that didn't change what came before it. I'm not about to throw away four happy years because of one terrible night."

This sank in, quietly.

Very slowly, "She tried to leave without killing me. And when she came back, she did the only thing she could do. It was her or me. And...she wanted me to live. She said so."

"She must have had her reasons. Sara was in no way the flighty sort of woman who acts without such."

"She must have." He shook his head. "What do I do with that? What did she want more, to die herself, or to not kill me? Did she...what if she liked me too? Does that suck or what?...It hurts a whole lot fuckin' less to get cut up by strangers. That I know for sure." Another shot. Even Mugen's fabled tolerance was getting a shade fuzzy at the edges.

"That I can agree with; the only trouble is finding a stranger. Thought I had one, and then we ended up spending too much time together."

"Yeah. It's like that." A long pause as both of them remembered the inauspicious beginning to their venture. "Pretty dumb of us. Could've let it alone, so it'd hurt less, but no." He looked at Jin with all the pain of betrayal raw and plain in his eyes. "Straight up Blue, tell me: two months now since you killed him. Does time make it hurt any less? Or make you love him any less?"

Jin granted the question the respect it deserved, and met Mugen's gaze with one no less open and wounded. "He died adoring me as he never had before...and I suspect I'll share his fate, in that respect. No, it doesn't hurt any less, and if anything I love him more, now. All that time gives you is perspective. Two months on, I have some inkling what part our love and his death played in my life and fate. That's all the comfort I can give."

"Some comfort. I won't feel any less rotten, I'll just understand it better...guess that's the best we get." Something that's been tense in him for three and a half days finally relaxes. "But, y'know, I still wouldn't take it back. It was worth it. Even just for a while."

He refilled Jin's cup and his own. This time, they drank the toast to the dead together, the silence more wistful than angry. Love and pain had always been intertwined, as long as this world of illusions had existed. One had to accept the two as a package. Not always an easy task, but those who accomplished it found the result worthwhile.

When it was over, Jin sighed. "Five minutes, tops, before I'm out cold, and you're pretty well sloshed. We may be sleeping in a ditch, tonight."

Mugen watched Jin unconsciously rub his aching shoulder. The guy had just made a pretty damn big effort to get him to snap out of it, and succeeded. That required some gesture of thanks—like not letting that wound get irritated by a night spend on the ground. "The sake is good enough that I wouldn't feel it if we did, but we should get back alright even with me hauling your pasty ass. C'mon. Let's get to it."


End file.
